It's all happening now, isn't it? My hope is that these are just the part of the growing pains of a transition into a freer and nicer society. The information/computer age seems to have matured and we are now dealing with what that means for us.

Optimism: a world with free access to education and information and implementation of your good ideas.Pessimism: a world where we spend all our lives looking for the next stupid thing to copyright to make enough money where life is enjoyable.

It's like one of those twisty racetrack courses, I think we're in for a lot of grief from the combined forces of the iProperty brigade and Big Brother, plus attached advertising barnacles along for the ride.

So I think *eventually* it will shake out, but it's gonna be a curvy ride.

Well, an equilateral polygon with an infinite number of sides is a circle (where the angle between points approaches 180 degrees), however, the circle is the only geometric shape that requires only 1 point - the center - and a length - the radius. So, the point of the circle is the center as it's pretty much useless to consider any other point(s). So, drawing a circle, you go round the "point", but never get to it.

Lately, I've been reversing that axiom. Even if a judge is not totally bought, *someone* is playing an evil angle. "How much was the judge paid" is a fun sarcasm-venting question, but nothing is ever innocent mistakes anymore, not in the age of the net. So maybe the judge thought she was "doing right" but what is "doing right"? "Maintaining the primacy of intellectual property"?

Much more sinister is the whole "Nah we don't need an impartial jury, that's for mere murder cases. Let's hold this on Apple's Back Lawn after the picnic that the entire state was invited to. Okay Jury, so tell me more about the part where you "didn't bother with prior art because that would have bogged down sending those evil foreigners a message?!! Go USA!"

Maybe Apple should do the same and start making their own iPhones and iPads from their own parts? Apple considers themselves both a software company and a hardware company, but they don't make any of their own hardware...their competitors do.

So guess who will pay for this lawsuit in the end? Apple's customers, of course. The natural course will result in the cost of goods produced by Samsung rising to cover the costs of this lawsuit and verdict, and Apple paying more for parts, and passing that on to their customers. Already, 26% of the cost of an iPhone or iPad goes right to Samsung to cover the costs of parts supplied by them.

So basically, Samsung has 2 years to suck as much money as it can from Apple, a company that is doing $11 billion in business with them this year alone, to cover the costs of this whole drama...which won't be difficult, considering the deals Apple is making with them, for all of Samsung's innovative new products that will end up in future iPhone, iPad, and Macbook models.

Velvin Hogan, the foreman of the jury in the Apple-Samsung case, said in a phone interview on Saturday that the decision should send a “clear message” to the industry that companies that violate intellectual property will have to pay a penalty, like the one Samsung officials face. “They took the risk and it caught up with them,” said Mr. Hogan, 67, a retired electrical engineer who holds two issued patents himself and has a third pending.

I wouldn't venture a guess as to whether this verdict might be eventually overturned, but I'd say that Samsung's lawyers certainly have some pretty good grounds for their inevitable appeal.

Actually, US patent law does allow for the awarding of punitive damages when it can be shown the infringement was significant and "willful." But in practice, the courts don't usually award them since most companies (or at least companies big enough to be able to pay punitive damages) can demonstrate the absence of willfulness by obtaining and following competent independent legal advice on issues relating to the possibility of patent infringement. In short, if your attorneys felt a patent in question was either invalid or not applicable to what you're doing, you're mostly off the hook for willfulness. (But not necessarily infringement.)

It's a not hard and fast rule how a court determines the degree of willfulness involved. But even where a court does find willfulness, it seldom awards the legal maximum of treble damages.

That's what that link is about... Samsung is an abuser also. Especially as even as much as we complain about the separation of corporate interests and politics in America, in South Korea, there is no separation.

That's what that link is about... Samsung is an abuser also. Especially as even as much as we complain about the separation of corporate interests and politics in America, in South Korea, there is no separation.